Book News Roundup: There’s a new delivery service for book buyers in London

Sure to be praised by anti-Amazon book lovers, a new scheme – ‘NearSt’ – has been implemented as an alternative one-hour delivery service for book buyers in London. This new app will help independent bookshops serve their customers on a more even footing with warehouse-giant Amazon. A total of around forty shops are available on the start-up service, and the hope is that this will help revolutionize the market for independent sellers.

In other book news:

Next year’s Harry Potter Book Night (taking place on 2 February) now has a theme: ‘The Professor of Hogwarts’. The focus of the 2017 event will be on the professors who have each impacted the Harry Potter tales in numerous ways. Any groups wishing to join in can register and sign up for event kits at the Harry Potter Book Night website.

Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger by the poet Fiona Wright has won Australia’s Kibble essay prize worth $30,000. Wright’s collection features insights into anorexia, which the author struggled with during her teen years and into her twenties.

In these weeks and months of political twists and turns, it is unsurprising that rights for politician’s memoirs and biographies are now being snapped up. Biteback will publish a biography of the UK’s new Prime Minister, Theresa May, while American democrat Bernie Sanders has a book scheduled for publication this November – after the election – which will include his policy ideas and thoughts on his immense success in his recent presidential campaign as a progressive member of the Democrat party.

It has been revealed that the forthcoming Dark Tower film adaptation, starring Idris Elba in the lead role, is a sequel of sorts to Stephen King’s acclaimed book series. Taking elements faithful to the books, but changing particular events, fans are happy that this is in keeping with King’s own meta-narrative structure of the novels.